


Inappropriate

by The_Cool_Aunt



Series: DISPATCH BOX [28]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Porn, Arthur Conan Doyle Canon References, Canon Compliant, Case Fic, Erections, Gay Sex, Inappropriate Erections, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Oral Sex, Victorian Attitudes, Victorian Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 09:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12056274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Cool_Aunt/pseuds/The_Cool_Aunt
Summary: “We are healthy men. I have urges. You have urges. It is completely normal.”“Our urges for one another are not normal,” he stated flatly.In the dispatch box of private writing of John H. Watson, M.D., many of the doctor’s musings make it apparent that, despite his clear instructions and stern admonishments, the relationship between him and the famous detective did not always stay in their rooms. At times, in fact, the carelessness of Holmes caused rifts between them. And then there were times that the doctor himself accidentally risked exposing their not only deviant but illegal relations to the world.





	Inappropriate

“Watson, are you well?” Sherlock Holmes’ deep voice penetrated the buzzing that filled my ears.  
  
“I just needed some air. Give me a moment and I will be fully recovered presently.”   
  
“I do not wish to leave you here alone if you are not yourself,” he pursued, his brow furrowed in concern.  
  
“I can assure you, my dear friend, that I will be perfectly fine on my own and in fact prefer it. Go back into the house and complete your examination of the scene. I shall sit here on this bench in the shade and await the completion of your exertions.”  
  
I did as I had said, seating myself on a decorative little bench that was tucked under a lattice covered all over in ivy. The greenery threw a pleasant, cool shade onto the seat and I shut my eyes.  
  
It was some seconds before I heard the familiar footsteps of my darling as he strode back to the house along the gravel pathway that I had used to effect my escape.  
  
Oh, yes, my escape. I withdrew my handkerchief from my pocket and blotted the perspiration from my face and considered what had occurred that had compelled my retreat.  
  
*  
  
We had been roused from our bed that morning (it had been just past nine o’clock but I hadn’t gotten to bed before one o’clock and Sherlock had tumbled in to join me sometime after four) by the energetic ringing of the bell. I rolled over, unwinding Sherlock’s long arms from around my chest and shoulders, and slid out from under the blankets. I immediately hurried to my own bedroom before the familiar steps of our landlady began to ascend the steps that led to our rooms.  
  
I had purposely closed the door between my own room and Sherlock’s rather loudly to alert him of my movements. A moment later, Mrs. Hudson was knocking energetically on the door that separated Sherlock’s bedroom from our sitting room. “Mr. Holmes!” I heard her call out. “There’s a gentleman here who is quite insistent that he consult with you immediately.”  
  
He groaned and I heard the bed creak as he extracted himself from the bedclothes and rose. “Very well, Mrs. Hudson,” he replied, his voice hoarse with sleep. “Please allow us a few minutes to dress before you bring him up—and coffee. I require a great deal of coffee.”  
  
“Yes, sir,” she agreed.  
  
“John!” His voice was now slightly petulant. “We have a client. Will you please join me as soon as you are able?”  
  
“Of course,” I managed, and if he had not still been half-asleep, he would most certainly have detected the anxiety and apprehension in my voice. How the hell was I supposed to dress and join him—and a client—as soon as I was “able” when, as a glance down confirmed, I was positively rigid?  
  
I am, of course, accustomed to waking in such a state, and I obviously know that it is, for the most part, a simple trick of the adult male physiology more closely aligned with the build-up of catarrh in one’s throat during sleep than any state of arousal.  
  
“For the most part” does not mean always.  
  
And this particular morning was one of those times.  
  
I had actually been sleeping very lightly before I heard the bell. As Sherlock lay next to me, deeply asleep and breathing slowly and evenly, I had had the most lovely, delicious dream about my sweetheart. We were out in the country somewhere and having a picnic when suddenly—in the way that dreams have of making these things seem perfectly logical—a small pond appeared. And just as suddenly, Sherlock and I were both bare, innocent of every stitch, and my love was laughing and beckoning for me to follow him as he walked himself backwards into the water.  
  
The water was deliciously cool and the bottom of the pond soft against my bare feet, and then I caught up with Sherlock just as it got deep enough for him to throw himself onto his back with a great splash.  
  
The blasted bell had rung just then, and as I leapt from the bed in anticipation of our landlady knocking one of us up, I was instantly aware that my prick was positively engorged.  
  
So now I stood in the middle of my room, staring down at it as bits of the lovely dream drifted through my mind and wanting nothing more than to wrap my hand around it and bring myself to release.  
  
Through determination—and thinking about Sherlock’s most recent experiment, which had involved him determining exactly how long it took for bits of flesh (in this case, pork) to become maggot-and-insect-ridden, reeking, disgusting messes whilst in different situations (covered, uncovered, and so on)—I somehow managed to get myself under control, dressed, and into our sitting room, where the obvious duress of our client wiped the last vestiges of my predicament from my head—for the moment, anyway.  
  
*  
  
“Well, I must say that this is intriguing,” Sherlock Holmes admitted coolly, but the keen way in which his queer grey eyes darted about the scene betrayed his interest, and I most certainly was equally startled and fascinated. After all, how often does one encounter a crime scene in which someone has broken into a house and _left things behind_?  
  
It was mid-August, and my dream had been somewhat prescient, as the day was turning out to be positively sultry. Although Sherlock was dressed in his usual frock coat, with a light grey silk waistcoat, crisp white collar and cuffs, and black tie, I had chosen one of my lightest suits. Our client—a Mr. Charles Harper—was attired similarly to me.  
  
In our rooms earlier, over strong cups of coffee, Mr. Harper had explained that when he, a bachelor, had risen that morning, he had had no idea of what was awaiting him downstairs. As was his habit, he had dressed for his office (he was some sort of lawyer) and then descended to the dining room for breakfast. The young woman who “did” for him, as he explained, would bring him his breakfast on a tray when he seated himself, much as our landlady does for us. As she organised the dishes she would need for his breakfast before she left each evening, to save herself time in the morning, she had no reason to be in the dining room before then. So, it was our new acquaintance who had discovered the decidedly unusual “gift” spread out on the gleaming table.  
  
I know nothing whatsoever about china, or silver, or crystal. We received a great deal of all of that when we were married—Mary and I—but that was one of those things at which I was doomed to “fail” as a husband. Mrs. Hudson’s familiar settings are, I am sure, not terribly fine, but we are (Sherlock is) hard on delicate objects and I am certain that she does not on a regular basis use her “best” for us. Clients—now that I consider it, I do believe that she does bring out the finer china when serving tea to a lady or gentleman. I am certain that for our friend Lestrade, she does not go to such ends. And I am equally certain that neither he nor Sherlock nor I cares one whit.  
  
Anyway, I was doing well at first. The task of inventorying the two full place settings of silver, crystal, and china that had appeared on our client’s dining room table overnight—including writing down those mysterious markings on the bottom of everything—distracted me exactly the way I required. That the room was almost uncomfortably warm already, and it was not yet noon, worked on my behalf as well. Truthfully, I was feeling rather wilted. But then I allowed my attention to wander, and that led to a grievous situation on my part.  
  
I do not exaggerate when I describe how Sherlock Holmes quite literally throws himself into his investigations. His slender form and long limbs seem to turn him almost into a spider, and his scurrying to and fro does nothing to dissuade me from my apprehension. I have seen him slide completely under a bed and then clamber up onto a table to peer at its canopy with barely ten seconds between to arrange the furniture to his convenience.  
  
So just then, having added three different sizes of spoons to my growing list (I had a book of etiquette back in our rooms and would have to use it to discern exactly what the differences were between them—at present I could do nothing beyond noting the relative size and any outstanding features of each piece), I glanced over to see how his investigation was proceeding.  
  
And there he was, hanging out of the window—quite literally. He was balanced on the sill—sitting on it—the entire upper part of his body suspended over the ground outside it. He was gripping the frame tightly with one hand, the bony knuckles white, as with the other he held his glass and minutely examined—something.  
  
Sherlock Holmes is not handsome in a conventional way. His hawk-like nose, gaunt frame, and deep-sunk eyes are nothing like the broad-shouldered and ruddy-cheeked gentlemen that peer out at one from the pages of the popular magazines. He is most certainly no advertisement.  
  
No, he is not handsome.  
  
He is beautiful.  
  
There are days when I simply cannot look at him enough. I never grow tired of observing him—razor-sharp cheekbones, piercing grey eyes, ivory skin, and the glorious dark hair; the deceptively sinewy strength of his limbs; his long, slender body.  
  
And so there he was, stretched out before me and positively beaming at something he had detected. He easily pulled himself upright and hopped down from the sill to the floor, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. He caught my eye and his grin widened. “Oh, this is a fascinating one, my dear friend,” he declared, unselfconsciously brushing the seat of his trousers with a free hand, and then he startled me by suddenly reaching toward me. “What’s this?” he exclaimed, pulling the chair next to which I was standing away from the table. “Have you counted the forks yet?”  
  
“Not yet. Why?” Honestly, I was not sure if I had done the forks yet, so distracted was I by the image of that lithe body in front of me.  
  
“Because you will find that you are one short.”  
  
“Oh? How do you know that?” I managed.  
  
“Because it has been employed to affix a rose to this chair’s seat,” he replied cheerfully.   
  
I looked down in some amazement. Yes, there it was—a lovely red rose, complete with its thorny stem—fixed firmly to the upholstered seat of the chair by a fork that looked identical to the silver I had been examining.  
  
“That would make for a somewhat uncomfortable dining experience,” he remarked cheekily. He knelt to examine the odd decoration more closely, and in doing so, unintentionally also brought his face very close to—well—there he was, on his knees in front of me. That image—his eager, keen expression; his grin of excitement; his long white fingers as they reached out—  
  
I was suddenly aware that my situation of that morning had now, quite literally, arisen again.  
  
Oh, God. What was I going to do? For there in the room with us were not just our client but his maid-of-all-work as well. She was barely eighteen from what I could determine and still had a bit of the roundness of young girlhood to her face. I saw no other option.  
  
“Excuse me. It is so very close in here,” I murmured and strode from the room as swiftly as I was able considering my circumstances. And so, I made my escape down the narrow gravel path.  
  
Sherlock had followed me almost immediately, revealing his genuine concern for me and my sudden departure. Nothing but his great care for me can pull him away from an investigation when he is hot on a scent. His reluctance to leave me alone and return to the scene spoke volumes.  
  
Now I heard his footsteps retreating over the gravel walkway, but the desperation of my situation was not retreating in kind. I stripped off my coat and laid it across my lap.  
  
Oh, God, how I so wanted to release myself.  
  
No, that is not honest. I did not wish to release myself. I wanted my love to release me. I desired for us to be back in our rooms, innocent of all clothing and lying on his bed together. I wished to be pressed up against his taut body. I longed to feel his thin, white fingers as they caressed first my face, and then my throat, and then my chest.  
  
I would have gladly died—in a way—to feel those thin, white fingers wrap around my tumescent organ and draw from me _la petite mort_.  
  
It was not possible. It was not reasonable. It was not decent. It was not legal.  
  
God, am I such a deviant that I cannot control my lewd thoughts even in public?  
  
It was that last thought that, fortunately, brought me to my senses—at least somewhat. As I considered the possible dire consequences of being revealed, my lust (and there is no other word for it) began to gradually diminish, just as ice cream in its dainty dish slowly loses its shape and texture when left out.  
  
The heat of the day bent me to its will and I wilted once more.  
  
Dimly, I could hear Sherlock’s distinct voice as he exclaimed about one thing or another. It became much clearer as he and Mr. Harper emerged from the house, and I did not need to open my eyes to know that the detective was as eagerly throwing himself upon his face amongst the flowers and hedges as he had been amongst the legs of the dining table. He was chattering on about indentations on the lawn and a broken latch on the window and scuff marks on the window-sill.  
  
I knew that I should be beside him, taking notes and praising his efforts (that he preens and blushes so prettily when I do so always makes me laugh), but I was simply not up to the task—did I really just write that?  
  
[At this point the doctor apparently paused in his writing. As so often happens, when he takes up his pen again, his handwriting—which had grown a bit ragged with emotion—is more firm and decisive.]  
  
Instead, I admitted defeat. Dragging myself up from my shaded seat, my coat draped over my arm, I approached Mr. Harper, who was staring in some amazement as Sherlock demonstrated that, due to the defective latch, it was almost child’s play to gain entry directly into the gentleman’s dining room.  
  
“See the marks of the shoes here amongst the… you do not have roses in your garden,” he suddenly remarked.  
  
“No, I suppose I do not,” Mr. Harper admitted in some puzzlement. “I admit that I am not terribly interested in my garden—in gardens in general. As long as the lawn is kept short for tennis and croquet, I honestly do not care in the slightest about flowers,” our client explained.  
  
“Holmes,” I interrupted. “Please forgive me, but I am going to take my leave. I am feeling distinctly unwell.”  
  
He nearly dropped his lens in his shock. I had never done such a thing, not even during our first case together, when I was still weakened by my war injuries and subsequent illness.  
  
“I am so sorry to hear that,” he ejaculated earnestly. “Yes, of course you must return to Baker Street at once, my dear Watson. Perhaps you can persuade Mrs. Hudson to make you something refreshing to drink, and you must lie down in a darkened room until you are feeling more yourself. Will that do? Can you manage on your own? Shall I accompany you?” His gaze as it swept over me was piercing indeed.  
  
“No! No, I do not mean to disturb your investigation. I am sufficiently in control of my wits to obtain a cab.”  
  
“Shall my maid go with you?” Mr. Harper inquired, concern on his face. Clearly, he noted Sherlock’s distress at my announcement. “Just to ensure that you do arrive safely?”  
  
“No, that is very kind, but assuredly not necessary. I will be perfectly all right on my own.”  
  
“If you think that is best, Watson,” Sherlock murmured, “to be on your own.”  
  
“Yes, I do, Holmes. Please take as long as you need to complete your enquiries here. I shall make my way home and hear all about your discoveries later.”  
  
“Yes, of course,” he murmured, becoming distracted. Despite his concern for me (which, truth be told, both flattered and brought my mind directly back to my original disgraceful thoughts), I had apparently said something that returned his attention to the puzzle laid out before him.  
  
And suddenly he was off—striding rapidly around the corner of the tidy little house.  
  
Mr. Harper gazed at the retreating figure and then looked back at me in some surprise.  
  
He recovered himself swiftly, however, and first helped me back into my coat and then, drawing my hand through his arm, he supported me as we made our way out towards the street. I wanted to protest his action, but found myself at a loss for words. He was only demonstrating a kindness—why should I have an objection? How was he to know how much this brought to my mind the countless times Sherlock has linked his arm in mine so that we might stroll down the pavement pressed against one another in an acceptable manner?  
  
I wished it was my darling who was at my side.  
  
His maid scurried behind us, rather agape at the entire morning’s proceedings, but she blew smartly enough on her whistle and almost immediately a cab was before us.  
  
“Please see that this gentleman arrives safely at his destination—you will escort him to his door, do you hear? Here is something extra for your consideration.” He pressed a coin into the cabbie’s grimy hand.  
  
“He ill?” the man demanded suspiciously.  
  
“I am somewhat faint but not bilious,” I assured him as I allowed Mr. Harper to help me up. “It is this damnable heat.”  
  
“Oh, aye,” he acquiesced. “Get on now!” he called out to his horse, and with a flick of the reins we sped away from the tidy house with the unexpected place settings for two so neatly laid out on the spotless dining room table.  
  
*  
  
I called out to Mrs. Hudson as I let myself in through the street door. I waved weakly at the cabbie and he, seeing that I had gained entry, nodded and touched his whip to his nag and they were off again.  
  
The hall was gloriously cool. Not being exposed to sunlight, it was blissfully refreshing and dark.  
  
Receiving no reply to my call, I headed up our steps, wanting nothing more than to strip to my vest and drawers and lie on the bed in my darkened room.  
  
I needed to think.  
  
*  
  
It was very shortly after I had stretched out that I heard our landlady enter the house. The heat having apparently paralysed the entire city, the street was oddly quiet even as we entered mid-afternoon, and so there was not the usual cacophony of Baker Street to override any noise within the house. I could hear the creak of her basket as she put it on the table in the hall. There was a pause and I knew that she was removing her hat. It was highly unlikely (an impossibility, as far as I was concerned) that she had to divest herself of any wrap, and my supposition was apparently correct, as immediately I heard her head towards the stairs that led down to the kitchen.  
  
I considered rising, dressing in some fashion (if there ever was a day that made our bohemian manner of dressing appropriate, it was this one), and descending to speak with her. I considered rising, throwing my lightest dressing gown over my shoulders, and ringing for her. I considered rising and, dressed still in just my vest and drawers, collapsing onto Sherlock’s bed to await his return.  
  
I considered lying on Sherlock’s bed, my drawers pulled down and my hand on my prick.  
  
I fell asleep considering these actions.  
  
*  
  
It was a few hours later. My room was still comfortable—being situated so that it did not receive morning or evening light directly and I having left the curtains mostly shut regardless. The sultry aspect of the day had apparently passed. I could feel a slight breeze through my open window—it promised a light summer rain that would be the very definition of refreshing.  
  
I managed to roll off my bed (I was lying on top of the bedclothes, of course) and regain my shirt and trousers. Not bothering with anything else (I strongly suspected that Mrs. Hudson was also barefoot in the privacy of her rooms), I moved slowly to the sitting room and rang.  
  
I was still muzzy-headed and now desperately thirsty. Not caring in the slightest who might see me in such disarray, I leaned out of one of the open front windows. The noises of the street, still not nearly as strident as was normal for this time of day, were nonetheless a bit livelier than during midday. I nearly fell into my chair as our dear landlady knocked and entered.  
  
“You rang… Doctor Watson! Goodness. Pardon my bluntness, but you look awful.”  
  
“It’s this damn… excuse me, my dear lady. It’s this abhorrent heat. I was taken over queer at the scene of a very odd break-in and was forced to take my leave of Mr. Holmes mid-investigation.”  
  
“I did note your hat down on the hall rack,” she nodded, bustling over to me (her full skirts hid her feet from me, but I distinctly recall being aware that the usual light tap-tap of the slippers she wore indoors was absent). “I was out myself and a lady in the butcher’s shop came over faint.”  
  
“Did anyone offer any restoratives?” I asked, my professional concern taking hold of me. That sort of thing must be happening all over the city, I reflected.  
  
“I had no smelling salts with me, but I did have my small bottle of scent. I put a bit of it on my handkerchief and daubed the poor lady’s temples and wrists with it.”  
  
“You are so sensible,” I offered, sincerely.  
  
“Her daughter was attending her—she was about twelve, and seemed quite sharp and responsible—and she said that she would get her mother safely home.”  
  
“Thank goodness.”  
  
“No one was wearing gloves,” she remarked. “Some young men did not even have their hats on,” she added. I could tell that she was trying to sound censorious but was having a difficult time of it.  
  
“Did you?” I enquired teasingly.  
  
“Did I what, sir?”  
  
“Did you go out without gloves?”  
  
“Doctor Watson!” She managed to sound outraged whilst looking terribly amused. I do so love her liveliness.  
  
“My error. Please excuse me,” I offered, smiling back.  
  
“I suppose his nibs took no notice of the temperature,” she snorted, changing the subject.  
  
“Not at all,” I admitted. “He does not seem to feel the heat the way most people do, though.”  
  
“No, he is much more likely to feel the cold,” she agreed. She looked out the window. “At least it seems as if we will see a change soon enough. That breeze is promising.”  
  
I agreed.  
  
“Oh, goodness, Doctor! Here I am, going on about breezes and gloves. Whatever did you ring about?”  
  
I smiled and explained to her my current desire for a refreshing drink. I assured her that I was not hungry, and would be fine waiting to share a cold supper later, whenever “his nibs” should grace us with his presence.  
  
*  
  
I have never put a great deal of thought into the age of our dear Mrs. Hudson. She is trim and lively; not at all dowdy or greying. I suppose I have always considered her a great deal older than I because she was so well-experienced in life—and not the least bit reticent about sharing her wisdom. It might also partly be that when she scolds us, which she does rather often, she reminds me more of my mother than anyone else. She is, indeed, very motherly to us, so it is no wonder that I presumed that, despite her only slightly-lined face, she was quite a bit older.  
  
I have been quite erroneous in my impression, a point that was made rather poignantly clear that evening.  
  
As the clock struck five o’clock, I smiled as our landlady re-entered our sitting room. “I thought a bit of claret-cup would be refreshing,” she remarked, bringing in a tray. “And I’ve got some lovely light biscuits if you are interested.”  
  
“That sounds perfect,” I replied. “But only if you join me,” I added. The glasses were on our sideboard and I retrieved two.  
  
“Oh, well…” she demurred.  
  
“Come, now, Mrs. H.,” I cajoled. The more time that passed since my disastrous morning, the lighter I felt. By bedtime, perhaps I would discover that it was just a dream. That Sherlock had not yet returned helped this self-delusion immensely.  
  
“Oh, all right,” she agreed. She sat herself neatly in the wicker chair we usually used for clients and, playing the host, I happily poured and placed into her hand a glass of the iced claret punch. It glistened prettily in the afternoon light.  
  
“Oh, this is lovely,” I agreed, taking a sip. Unlike a port, which I certainly do enjoy, this was not heating in any way. With it she had brought a dish of the lightest biscuits—they were really rather exquisite.  
  
“What are these?” I wondered. “Lime?”  
  
She smiled. “Yes, indeed. It’s a new receipt. I am always on the lookout for anything with lemon or lime for him… Fortunately, I baked them last evening. Since this morning, I have not had the heart to do more with the stove than make the coffee. I’ve got some nice tongue and a cold joint for you later.”  
  
“That sounds perfect,” I agreed.  
  
“You know,” she mused, taking another sip, “I cannot recall such an oppressive heat as this for years. Not since… goodness. Mr. Hudson and my darling boy were still with me.”  
  
“Yes?” I encouraged quietly. She spoke so rarely about her husband and child, torn so unceremoniously from her by the horrible grasp of disease.  
  
“Mmm. It was July. It had not been terribly oppressive, but one evening, one could not help but notice that, as the sun went down, the temperature began going _up_. We had a fitful night, and by morning I was grateful to rise, our bed was so uncomfortable. Oh, excuse me, please, Doctor. It must be the claret.”  
  
“No, you do not shock me,” I assured her gently. “I was married, too, you might recall.”  
  
“For about a quarter of an hour,” she retorted, quickly, then took a good—generous—sip of her drink.  
  
“Yes, well… you were telling me how hot it was.”  
  
“Oh, yes. Well, it was just as it was today, and I found myself utterly unable to move. I was quite ill. I was expecting our second child…” She paused and I stared at her in shock. “Oh, I am sorry. You didn’t know. Of course, you did not know. I don’t think it was the heat—perhaps it was—but I was only a few months along and a few weeks later I… I was not any longer, if you take my meaning.”  
  
“Oh, my dear Mrs. Hudson,” I offered, and I am not too proud to admit, here in my private papers at least, that I felt the prick of hot tears beneath my eyelids.  
  
“Anyway,” she continued with a determined briskness. “It was horribly hot. I felt as if I could not draw a deep breath.”  
  
“So, what did you do?”  
  
“Well, sir, we did what most sensible folk were doing. I packed a picnic basket and some rugs and we got on the train and we went to the seaside.”  
  
“You did not!”  
  
“We most certainly did,” she retorted, smiling at her success in surprising me with this frivolity. “Along with half of London. The train was quite full—I got a seat, but Mr. Hudson took our boy onto his lap—he was grown enough that it could not have been comfortable, but there was not another seat in the carriage.”  
  
“And…?”  
  
“And we had a lovely, lovely afternoon. They rented bathing costumes and had quite a time in the waves. I even waded out a bit,” she admitted.   
  
“Goodness,” I remarked at this impropriety.  
  
“It was so cooling.”  
  
I thought about what it must have been like—our respectable landlady hastily doffing shoes and stockings and, skirts gathered up just enough to bare her ankles, breathing a sigh of relief as she felt the cool foam of the surf wash over her bare feet—propriety be damned. I could picture her husband and son in their swimming costumes, running eagerly into the refreshing waves. I was fond of the idea that Mr. Hudson was an attentive and energetic father, perhaps splashing their son and later helping him build a sandcastle and hunt for shells.   
  
How old was their son at the time of their expedition?  
  
“I am so grateful that we had such a lovely time that day,” she continued quietly.  
  
It struck me. “Oh, goodness, my dear lady. Was it…?” My voice—and my nerve—failed me.  
  
“Yes, I am afraid so. It was not long after that day that they were both struck down with that terrible illness. They both succumbed so quickly. I am thankful for that, you know. Others suffer—linger—for ages with it, or they are left so horribly disfigured.”  
  
“Oh, Mrs. Hudson,” I managed. And then I paused—Sherlock would be proud as I did some rapid deductions from her words and calculations in my head. “I am sorry, but did you say disfigured?”  
  
“Oh, yes, of course—some folks are just covered in the pockmarks. Some people go blind.”  
  
“Pock…” I stuttered—I was so taken aback by my sudden realisation that I became utterly unprofessional and inarticulate.  
  
She looked at me keenly. “Doctor Watson?” she ventured, “Is there something amiss? Oh, I should not be telling you such a terrible story.”  
  
I took a good, deep drink of the cool drink I held. “No, it is fine,” I finally managed, “but I believe that I was under a misapprehension regarding the passing of your husband and child.”  
  
“Misapprehension?” She sounded puzzled and a bit concerned. “Whatever do you mean?”  
  
I took another drink, then a deep breath. “I do not mean to bring up unpleasant memories, my dear lady, but I thought that it was cholera that took them.”  
  
“Oh! Is that all? Do not concern yourself. There is no reason for you to know anything at all about it. It happened before you and Mr. Holmes lived here. It is in my past.”  
  
I considered what I was about to say carefully, finishing my glass whilst doing so and rising to refill both my own and my guest’s glasses. She made a very feeble attempt to refuse more; I just looked at her and she laughed a bit and held her glass up to me.  
  
Reseating myself, I felt brave enough to tackle the issue head-on. “Mrs. Hudson, my dear, I know that this is probably a very inappropriate and rather unlikely conversation for a tenant to have with his landlady, but I am also a medical doctor—and your friend. I would like to consider myself your friend. Is that acceptable?”  
  
“I am a respectable, church-going widow,” she replied with another smile. “I can be friends with whomever I wish.”  
  
“Thank you. That being said, can you please—they died of smallpox; is that correct?”  
  
“Yes. It was definitely smallpox, not cholera or typhus.”  
  
“And can I—will you allow me to ask—when did this happen?”  
  
“They died in the late summer of 1878.”  
  
This hit me so very hard I sat back in my chair, stunned. 1878? Sherlock and I had moved into our rooms in 1881. It had happened—it had all happened—so much more recently than I had realised.  
  
“Are you well?” she asked.  
  
“I am just a bit taken aback,” I admitted. “I will be honest—and a bit churlish. I believed that it had happened much longer ago.”  
  
“Well, I do not dwell upon it,” she explained, “and I wore my widow’s weeds for just a year. It was not out of lack of respect for my dear husband,” she hastened to add, “but a young widow may sometimes be perceived as being a bit… naïve. Vulnerable. I had to make my own living then, and it was so difficult to get anything accomplished—workmen can be terribly condescending. I found myself quite arguing with some of them about the alterations I needed in the house, and dealing with the lawyers and the bankers… I did it quite deliberately, you know.”  
  
“What did you do deliberately?”  
  
“I cast myself as older. I put aside the crape. I put away the photographs of us as a family. I began to speak of my marriage and losing my dear ones as if it had happened ages ago.”  
  
“That is dreadful—it is as if you were not permitted to mourn for them.”  
  
“You are such a dear man,” she murmured. “But do not concern yourself. I mourned them in my heart, but I did what I had to do to make my way. Sometimes I feel that Mr. Hudson in particular would be proud of the way I have managed.”  
  
Numbers—years—were still rattling around in my head, and I clearly have been living with Sherlock for far too long, because the question sprang from my lips heedless of decorum. I am still, as I write this, burning with shame, but I must record here my terrible question.  
  
“Mrs. Hudson, how old are you?” I burst out. There was a moment of silence. I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I am so very sorry!” I exclaimed. “Please, please accept my apologies—”  
  
She laughed—a warm, affectionate chuckle. “Oh, please do not feel so uncomfortable!” she cried. “I am not one of those women who believe that being over or under a certain number of years has any great significance. I was eighteen years old when I married and nineteen when I had our son. He passed away not long before his tenth birthday.”  
  
“So, you are… approximately the same age as Mycroft Holmes,” I realised.  
  
“That is correct,” she agreed.  
  
A wild and unbecoming and almost grotesque thought formed in my mind. What if she and Sherlock’s elder brother got married?  
  
“Would you ever consider re-marrying?” I inquired—with my friend’s amused acceptance of my impetuous questions and second glass of claret cup I now had thrown decorum to the wind—and I charged our glasses yet again.  
  
“That would hardly be desirable for any of us,” she replied.  
  
“Meaning?”  
  
“Meaning that if I re-married I would probably not be renting out rooms any longer. You would have to find new lodgings—and how would you expect to do that? Surely you do not think you could find anyone else willing to tolerate—the queer visitors. The chemicals. The erratic hours. The _mess_. And all of the other… _irregularities_.”  
  
She paused and looked at me meaningfully. It took me a moment to realise the significance of her remark, and I found myself speechless. She was, of course, entirely correct.  
  
“Oh, do not worry yourself,” she added. “I have no interest in re-marrying. You and he are more than enough to keep me busy—and you know that for all my admonishments, I would find life rather dull without the experiments and bent pokers and… everything. Here. It is growing late and there is no telling when he will return. I will prepare that tray of cold meats for you now, shall I?”  
  
She rose, downed the remainder of the punch in her glass, and briskly exited our sitting room.  
  
Yes, I was certain then—her feet were as bare as my own.  
  
*  
  
The cold tongue and joint were delightful. She had been correct about not awaiting Sherlock’s return. I had had no breakfast nor lunch—my appetite being blunted by the heat and by my apprehension—but now I was feeling much more myself. When I was replete, I covered the remainder of the meal and placed it on the sideboard; perhaps Sherlock would like something to eat upon his return.  
  
*  
  
“Hello, John,” my darling greeted me, entering our rooms. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“Much better, thank you. All solved, then?” I smiled.  
  
“Oh, yes. It turned out to be a bit mundane, really.” He seemed a bit downcast.  
  
“Oh? I wish to hear all about it—but first, my love, I suspect that you are quite uncomfortable.”  
  
He is so unaware of his state at times. He has admitted to me, more than once and beginning very early on in our life together, that he is ineffective to the point of neglect when it came to discerning his own condition. At that time, he claimed that he was actually unable to identify those feelings in himself, but I now believe that that is not entirely true. I believe that he is aware of his body’s signals to eat; to drink; to sleep. but simply chooses to ignore the shivering limbs and aching head. At those times, it is only his iron will that allows him to continue moving and speaking. More than once I have barely been able to catch him as he finally and unexpectedly succumbs to the rigor of his existence and the neglect of his own body.  
  
So now as he entered, I could instantly observe that he was, if not suffering terribly from it, at least uncomfortable from the heat. He removed his coat and hat, then looked down on himself in some surprise. I rose and went to assist him.  
  
“Do not come near me, John,” he requested quietly. “I am positively vile.”  
  
“My poor darling,” I murmured. “I would like nothing more than to help make you comfortable. You cannot possibly offend me, for it is only by good, honest labour that you find yourself thus. I suspect that a sponge and towel will help immensely.”  
  
“Most certainly,” he agreed rather tiredly. He turned and headed for his bedroom.  
  
I followed him and closed and locked the door. He glanced at me with an odd expression before removing and dropping his waistcoat to the floor. His tie and collar followed, and I could see that his shirt was, indeed, rather soaked through.  
  
“Sit down,” I instructed, manoeuvring him to the bed. He dropped down and allowed me to remove his boots and stockings. I admit to wrinkling my nose a bit. “Not the worst,” I managed, “but these boots will have to be aired thoroughly.”  
  
“I am sorry. I cannot stand myself,” he admitted. “Please do not feel obliged…”  
  
His words faded to nothing as I removed his shirt and vest and, with a quick twitch of his hips, his trousers and drawers. I bundled everything up and tossed it all into the furthest corner of the room. “I will remove those presently,” I informed him. “Now, I believe a sponge and towel were the recommended prescriptions for this particular condition?” I kept my tone light and teasing. He seemed to be in an odd mood. He was fastidious and despised being foul in that way; I presumed that now that he was aware of it, it was his physical state that was disturbing him.  
  
“John, you really do not have to,” he protested.  
  
“Nonsense. It will make you feel so much better, and I am quite serious—as your doctor there is nothing more I can do for you at present but to clean you up and cool you off.”  
  
He grumbled deep in his throat but I took no notice, instead retrieving the items I needed from around his room.  
  
I knew that there was no need of hot water for a bath. The water in the pitcher on his stand would be tepid, and that was exactly what I desired. I poured some into the bowl and found his sponge. Then I partially unfolded one towel and placed it on the floor. “I should be doing this in the bath-room,” I remarked, “as the linoleum floor is doubtless a better surface for this purpose, but I shall take everything up when we are done and all will be well. Stand there,” I ordered.  
  
He obediently stood in the middle of the towel. He was clearly horribly uncomfortable, even bare, and seem disinclined to allow any part of his body to touch another—holding his arms away from his sides and with his legs spread slightly apart.  
  
“That is perfect,” I commended him. “Now, stay still.”  
  
I have not washed a horse since I was a boy; we had a horse and trap for my father’s use in his medical practice and to take him and my mother to church on Sundays but since then I had not been in a situation that required such activities. However, I dimly recalled the technique, and I started at the top.  
  
Oh, my darling’s face! He is just the loveliest thing in the world. I began by getting the sponge good and wet, and then wringing it out over that glorious, uproarious head of dark hair. The curls, in protest of the heat, apparently, had sprung up everywhere, but they are so very dense that I had to work a bit to get the lovely, cool water to his scalp and douse his brilliant and overheated head.  
  
From there I rinsed and wrung out the sponge and gently cleaned his face. His eyes were shut and his head tilted upwards, so the water from his newly-soaked locks would run down his back, and I reached up and gently wiped his lovely features clean. I stroked across his broad brow. I brushed as lightly as I was able over his eyelids. I lovingly worked the sponge down his sharp cheekbones and hawk-like nose. I rinsed and wrung it out again and then cleaned that lovely little bit just above his perfect lips and as I wiped across and under his chin and behind his ears I admit that I placed a light kiss on them.  
  
He twitched his face away from mine. I should have realised at that instant that there was something truly wrong. Instead, I presumed it was merely his discomfort and continued my ablutions, repeatedly rinsing and wringing out the sponge. When I reached his waist, I emptied the bowl into the slops jar and refilled it with clean water.  
  
“John, I…,” he reached out a hand and grasped my wrist, his grey eyes open now. “I can attend to the rest myself.”  
  
“Whatever do you mean… do you not wish me to attend to you?” I demanded, my hand arrested in mid-air, with the sponge dripping.  
  
“I can manage on my own. I am so foul and I feel so vile. You should not have to do this.”  
  
“My love,” I said sternly, “you have been far worse than this. You have been sick all over yourself and you allowed me to cleanse you then. I will be honest and say that that was much more unpleasant, and still I did it—and will do it again if necessary—willingly.”  
  
He frowned in a rather sad way and looked down, apparently studying the wet towel beneath his feet. “It is not just that,” he admitted.  
  
This took me by surprise, and my hand, still clutching the wet sponge, dropped to my side. “Then what is it?” I demanded.  
  
“It is… I am not ignorant of this morning’s… situation,” he admitted haltingly.  
  
“This morning’s…?” I had been concentrating so much on relieving his current discomfort that at first, I honestly did not recall to what he referred. And then I did.  
  
The sponge made a sodden, wet squelch when I dropped it into the bowl.  
  
“Sherlock,” I replied sternly, “I was not certain when we would have this discussion, but apparently, we need to have it now. What do you think happened this morning?”  
  
He, apparently cooled by my ablutions to his upper half, gave a slight shudder. Then he focused his sharp eyes on mine and his voice dropped quite low. “I believe that you were somehow stimulated as I performed my investigation of the scene—and you were so ashamed that you fled, claiming to be a victim of the heat.”  
  
“Well,” I managed, my throat tight, “you are, as usual, correct on all points. But how did you know?”  
  
“John,” he reproached, “you were a solider in Afghanistan, which has a much more inhospitable climate than England. You have shared with me the horrors of the conditions of your service and of the misery of your illness, and even in the throes of the worst of your fevers, you have never actually remarked that it was too hot for you.  
  
“Indeed,” he continued, “it is rather the opposite. It is cold that causes you to suffer—cold and dry winter air. I dislike it when your scars cause you such discomfort and long for nothing but to be able to relieve you of some of the pain in any way I can.”  
  
I remained quiet. I am not sure how to describe exactly what I was feeling at that moment. Yes, of course, as always, I was proud of him for being absolutely correct. I was touched that he spoke of my infirmities with such tenderness. I recalled with gladness his ministrations when I was stricken—stoking the fire and turning my chair towards it and gently covering me with blankets and—and this is most touching—insisting at times that I stay inside and not follow him as he plunged out into the frigid air in pursuit of a case.  
  
But I was also keenly aware that he was correct on his other point—the heat did not, generally, bother me overmuch.  
  
“So, when you said that your weakness was caused by the heat, I knew that to be somewhat of an untruth.”  
  
“I see.”  
  
“And then, when Mr. Harper helped you on with your coat and walked you to the street—well, I do not wish to be indelicate, but your condition was rather apparent to me.”  
  
My heart began to beat rapidly. “Do you mean that—?”  
  
“No, it would not have been noticeable by anyone else, but to my eyes it was quite plain.”  
  
I sighed. “Yes, you are absolutely correct.”  
  
His stare was dreadful; his silence was worse.  
  
“It was those fantastic positions,” I hastened to explain. “When you throw yourself about like that—all the reaching and creeping and when you were kneeling in front of me—I found that… I _find_ that _terribly_ stimulating.”  
  
“Are you admitting,” he responded in a low tone, “that my activities at a crime scene encourage—” His brows drew down.  
  
“My love,” I murmured, pressing myself against his slender yet half-cleaned body, “every single thing that you do encourages—entices— _stimulates_ me. This is not the first time that I have felt those stirrings at the sight of you crawling under a bed or shimmying up a drainpipe. It was just the first time that I could not, seemingly, _dampen_ them. Do you understand?”  
  
“You have been stiff at an investigation prior to this morning?” His astonishment and outrage were a bit worrying.  
  
“Well, to be honest, my love—yes. Not often,” I hastened to amend, “but observing you—God, Sherlock—you have the most enticing body I have ever encountered. That I have seen it bare and have partaken of its delights make it even harder—” I stopped myself. Had I really said that?  
  
Yes, I had confused him. “Do you mean more difficult or more rigid?” he asked plainly.  
  
“Both,” I immediately admitted. “Sherlock, I love you, and the times that we are together in that way are—well—the most glorious moments that I have ever and will ever experience. But I am a healthy, vigorous man, as are you, and sometimes it is extremely difficult to focus on recording the number of forks that have appeared on a bachelor’s dining room table overnight when all I wish to do is this.” I pressed my face to his and attempted to kiss the freshly-cleaned skin.  
  
“No, John.”  
  
It was my turn to be astonished. “No?” I echoed.  
  
“Please leave off from your attentions.” He turned his face from mine. I instantly felt shame.  
  
“God, Sherlock, I am so sorry. I just meant… I meant to cleanse you… to bathe you. I know that you feel horrid from your exertions and the heat of this wretched day.”  
  
“Do not lie to me, John,” he said softly. “And please leave me. I do not wish to be with you at present.”  
  
It was the most hurtful thing I have ever heard—including the words that Mary had flung at me at the end of our brief and rather pointless marriage.  
  
I left him standing alone on the damp towel, staring dully down at it.  
  
*  
  
I retreated to my own bedroom, my steps slow. My limbs felt heavy and my head hung in shame and anguish. I just stood there for a few moments, recalling Sherlock’s hurtful words over and over. He did not wish to be with me. He did not wish for me to kiss him or touch him. He did not want to hear about how he made me feel.  
  
I listened. I had not shut the door separating his room from mine, and so I clearly discerned the sound of the water as he retrieved and wrung out his sponge. I could not bear it. Moving as quietly as I could manage, I approached the open door and peered into his room through the narrow opening I had left.  
  
He was still standing on the towel, wiping himself down in a methodical, slow fashion. He ran the sponge across and between his legs; reached around and continued his ablutions.  
  
There were times when observing him performing such an action was the most enticing, beautiful, stimulating thing ever—both for me and for him. But not now. His head was down; his face the very picture of thoughtful despair. He sighed as he passed the sponge across his flaccid organ.  
  
I must have made some sort of noise as I observed this, for he suddenly glanced up and over towards the door and then, with a hiss and a scowl, he strode across the room, slammed the door shut, and locked it.  
  
*  
  
“What on earth is going on, Doctor?” Mrs. Hudson demanded. She was standing before me in the hall, her arms crossed and her face severe. She was wearing her nightdress. She glared down at my case. “Did you two have an argument?”  
  
“In a manner of speaking,” I hedged.  
  
“Oh, for heaven’s sake. What was it about this time?”  
  
“I cannot say,” I waffled.  
  
“John Watson, stop being ridiculous. You and he are worse than two children—all the quarrelling and running away.”  
  
“Running away?”  
  
“I am not an idiot, you know. Here it is, nearly nine o’clock, and you are dressed, bag in hand, and clearly headed out to stay in a hotel until your latest little tiff blows over.”  
  
I could not deny it. I shrugged my shoulders, unable to come up with one useful word in my defence.  
  
“Honestly, I never would have thought it of you—being an ex-soldier and all.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Retreating! Leaving. Running away. It just seems rather—please forgive me for being so blunt—cowardly.”  
  
It is a testament to the depth of my sorrow that I did not feel the slightest objection to her accusation, but I did attempt to clarify my position. “I am not retreating, my dear lady,” I informed her. “He does not currently desire my presence.”  
  
“He asked you to leave?” she demanded incredulously.  
  
“He said that he did not wish to be with me at present.”  
  
“What in heaven’s name did you _do_ , John? He cannot abide you going away for even a day—every separation you two have ever experienced has been because of an investigation or because _he_ has irritated _you_ beyond the point of reason. _He_ has never wanted for you to go.”  
  
Her use of my Christian name went unremarked at the time except that it somehow made me aware that she was truly speaking to me not just from her heart but to mine.   
  
She sighed. “Please. You cannot do this. He cannot manage without you by his side. When you leave him like this, you know that he does not eat or sleep. I do not wish for him to sink into one of his spells of melancholia.”  
  
I bit my lip. I knew that this was a distinct possibility. I hesitated and reconsidered our situation for a moment. But no…  
  
“No,” I had to tell our dear friend. “This is not one of our usual arguments. It was nothing that he did. I am not angry with him. It was something that I did that has upset him, and quite deservedly he is angry with me. He has withdrawn from me and does not wish to have anything to do with me at present. I did not mean to upset him—truly, I did not, but I am, to be honest, quite ashamed of myself.”  
  
“Well, I will not judge you; you and he are both clearly doing enough of that. But perhaps it is, as you say, best if you do as he wishes and stay away for a day or two.” She sounded so horribly disappointed that I could not bear to look her in the face.  
  
“Yes, I think that it is best,” I whispered and, taking my case, I let myself out into the night.  
  
*  
  
I wrote him my first letter of apology that very night, after securing a room for myself. The hotel desk attendant seemed completely uninterested in hearing a reason for my late arrival or lack of a reservation. It is London, after all, and life in all its activity does not stop when the sun sets.  
  
I brought my letter to the front desk to be posted first thing in the morning. I attempted then to lie down. I doubted that I would be able to sleep and I was correct. I tossed and turned until the sun rose, at which time I dressed and wrote my second letter.  
  
Breakfast was a desultory affair. I had brought a few books along, and propped one in front of me as I gnawed on my toast. I did not care that it marked me as undoubtedly dining on my own. Staring at the empty chair on the opposite side of the table seemed a much worse pastime.  
  
Finally, my meal complete, I returned to my empty and lonely room. What was I going to do? Usually when I absented myself from Baker Street it was my choice and often it was the peace of solitude that I sought. This was so far from my current situation I was at a loss. I was in no mood to write up any cases, and it occurred to me that I could not have written anything about our latest one because Sherlock had never gotten around to telling me the resolution of his investigation. It had taken him such a short period of time and he had not seemed terribly impressed with himself, so it must not have been very intriguing. Mundane, he had said. Perhaps painfully obvious.  
  
I did at that point allow myself to consider the little I knew of the case. Mr. Harper was a bachelor. His maid-of-all-work did not live in. He had a tidy house with a tidy garden—nothing to show the slightest mark of a woman’s touch. This thought brought to my mind some of the more seemingly frivolous decorations with which Mary had festooned the house that we had shared.  
  
Why did my mind, thrice now in the span of less than a day, touch on Mary and our brief time as husband and wife? I truly did not—do not—reflect on her all that often. So, was it something that I had seen or heard in our client’s home that had sparked those thoughts? It seemed likely. I considered the matter further.  
  
Domesticity—yes. That was the thread running through my thoughts. Here was a bachelor suddenly endowed with what were without a doubt the trappings of the domestic situation of a married man. The china, the silver, the crystal—two place settings. It was meant as a message. But to what end? And from whom?  
  
Sherlock had discovered that whoever it was had gained ingress via the dining room window with the broken latch. That could not be a coincidence. Whoever it was must have known that the window was not locked. He had not seen the impression of footprints under any of the other windows. The intruder knew exactly which window to breach.  
  
Both our client and his maid had seemed genuinely surprised for not having realised that the latch was not operating properly, so it was unlikely to have been in that condition for long.  
  
So, it was likely that the trespasser had been a guest of Mr. Harper’s at least once and it had been a recent visit, during which perhaps this person had simply noted the defect—or perhaps had damaged the latch intentionally so as to have a means of entrance?  
  
I am sure that all of this had passed through Sherlock’s mind in the time it took him to jump down from the windowsill.  
  
But who would do such a thing? Burglary was clearly not the purpose—as far as I knew. At least the client had not revealed that anything had gone missing from the house whilst I was in his presence.  
  
And then there was the most grotesque aspect of the macabre scene—the fork and the rose. The choice of a rose—a red rose—and had not Mr. Harper confirmed that he did not have any roses in his garden? So, the intruder had brought not just the place settings but the rose with him—  
  
No, not him. With her.  
  
Of course.  
  
It had to have been a woman who introduced the not just feminine but decidedly marital-related items to the bachelor’s home. How very, very odd.  
  
How had she done it? Had she somehow clambered in through the window with the plates; the crystal? No, that seemed unlikely. The height of the sill from the ground would have made it challenging for someone to lift themselves up, let alone hampered by skirts.  
  
She must be an athletic lady, I realised, to do that at all. So, what had occurred?  
  
Damn. I could not conjecture further. I had left the scene with just that limited amount of information.  
  
No, that was not correct. I did have one more piece of information—and it was one that I had inadvertently taken away with me. I reached into my coat pocket. Yes, the sheet on which I had been inventorying those mysterious items was there. I recalled now that I had thrust it in as I had hurried out of the house. It was rather crumpled. I smoothed it out and examined it.  
  
I had begun with the china. I had made notes—copying the marks on the back of the plates and whatnot. They mean little to me—I knew they identify the maker, sometimes by name and sometimes by just a letter or symbol, and sometimes the name of the pattern. Beyond that, I have no idea. What I had noted was the size of the plates—from very large to very small, and shallow bowls. And what I recalled then was the actual pattern. It was floral. Very floral. Rather ostentatiously and fussily floral. Most certainly not to my taste.  
  
Then I had begun on the silver. There were multiple forks, knives, and spoons, set fastidiously on either side of the plate. I had no idea what some of the forks in particular were for—I knew there was a special knife and fork for fish, and one type just for oysters. I found it rather ridiculous but I knew that to some people it was terribly important to know which fork was for meat and which for cake.  
  
I had not recorded but now recalled the stemware as well—a full row of crystal glasses of different shapes and sizes. Once again, I knew that each glass was intended for something different, but I had no idea why, for example, one could not drink water from the same type of glass as one drank wine, and most certainly could not recall which glass could receive a red wine and which a white. At one point in my past I did know a great deal more about these matters, but as one forgets a foreign language if one does not continually use it, I had forgotten a great deal of these finer points of etiquette.  
  
I would not embarrass myself at a fine dinner, of course, for I have the sense to rely on the butler to have laid the silver in the order in which it was to be used and pouring the proper beverage into each glass. The job of the footman, also, was to whisk away the used dishes, so it was rather impossible to make an error. I also am, if I say so myself, quite adept in handling silver. I just could not, faced with such a formidable array as had greeted us at Mr. Harper’s home, actually name which one was the cake fork and which the oyster fork.  
  
It just seemed so terribly fussy.  
  
Fussy and floral and feminine. Yes, there was no doubt in my mind—the perpetrator had been a woman, and one with matrimony on her mind.  
  
That was when I put two and two together. Mr. Harper was an eligible bachelor. Perhaps a young woman had set her heart on him but—but what? Was there some issue which prevented her from becoming his wife? Why would she enact such a bizarre trick?  
  
The single red rose—I did not have to be an expert at the language of flowers to know that it signified romantic love. But did it not also mean something else? Perhaps I could visit a florist’s shop or find a girl selling nosegays and ask.  
  
And what of the fork? Why of all things had she chosen that—and why had she affixed the bloom to the seat of the chair when she could have simply laid it on the place setting? Like the ascent through the window, driving the fork through the upholstered chair seat had taken a vigorous effort. Whoever she was, she clearly had a message to deliver that could not be conveyed with a visitor’s card.  
  
I sighed. I had now truly exhausted all the information I had. Obviously as I was taking my leave, Sherlock’s attention had been drawn by something new, for he had dashed around towards the back of the house, and, of course, solved the whole matter in time for tea.  
  
He had not actually had any tea or supper that I knew of. As I packed, he had remained locked in his room and silent. I stopped a few times and strained to listen, but I could not detect any motion. I did not even know if he had completed refreshing himself, although it seemed unlikely that he would have left the last bits—his legs and feet—unwashed.  
  
I could picture him now, sitting on his bed, washing and drying his feet and then dropping the wet sponge onto the towel. He probably then stretched out on his bed, completely bare.  
  
I hoped that he had gotten some sleep.  
  
*  
  
I spent the remainder of my day out. Frustrated at not knowing the outcome of the case, I found the details to which I was privy constantly in my thoughts. Reading of any sort—I had brought one of my yellow-backed novels and a new medical text on the treatment of diseases of the skin—was a lost cause. I found myself running my eyes over a paragraph multiple times without comprehending a single word.  
  
I had finally given it up and, donning my coat and hat, I struck out. It had, as the scent in the air had promised, rained during the night, and the city was cooler and brighter. The streets were full of folks bustling about.  
  
It has just struck me—all those people out and about in the broad daylight. Who were they? What were they doing? It was so odd to assume that every single one of them was having an ordinary day, doing ordinary things, but that is what one must do. In order for the city to function as a whole, and not to end up in despair and anarchy, every single person had to, at least to some degree, simply assume that the man walking behind them on the pavement was not about to strike them with his walking stick. No shop keeper would be in business for long if he thought that every customer who entered his premises had nefarious intentions. Someone carrying a single red rose might not even get a second look.  
  
We do, of course, not make these assumptions at other times of the day. When darkness falls, no matter how bright and abundant the gas lights are, the streets become ominous. Every mews and alley seems to harbour the lowest of criminals, lurking just out of sight and ready to burst out of the shadows, brandishing a gleaming knife. When someone is out at night, unless they are a police constable, they are a victim—or a suspect.  
  
And when darkness falls, as we have done since prehistory, we retreat to whatever we consider our home—fine house or cottage or slum or even a gypsy caravan—and we fasten all the windows and doors. We lock ourselves in and everyone else out.  
  
When it is dark, we ascribe nefarious intentions to the most innocuous of men simply because he is out of doors without the benefit of the light of the sun.  
  
Where was I? If this was for publication, my editor would mark the above paragraphs through with rather vicious strokes of his pencil.  
  
What had occurred to me as I struck out from the hotel into the bright, fresh day was this: everyone who saw me, decently attired and walking with calm purpose, would have assumed that I was off to attend to some mundane matter—stopping at my tailor’s, or at the bank. If I had my medical bag with me, everyone would assume that I was on my way to attend to a patient.  
  
Not one person observing me thus, bold in the daylight, would stop and think, “I wonder if that man is not a doctor but a deranged murderer. His bag is full of wicked and terrifying weapons and tools, and he is on his way to slash the life out of an innocent victim.”  
  
As I made my way through the streets, dodging prams and costermonger’s carts, I wondered if anyone amongst the throng was such a person and on such a nefarious errand as that.  
  
I believe sometimes that spending my life with Sherlock Holmes has done something horrible to my brain and I will never be able to look at a bicycle, or a bell pull, or a china setting without suspicion again.  
  
*  
  
It was china that I was after—china and crystal and silver. Feeling so very helpless in my banishment, I determined to at least use the time to improve my knowledge of the subject at hand. Even if he had already solved it, I wanted to set in my mind a better grasp of these things. For who knows when the information will be needed again?  
  
That and feigning interest in the endless samples of hideously overly floral and fussy china; the unnecessarily heavy crystal goblets; and the ludicrous abundance of fish knives and ice cream spoons with elaborately detailed handles the cleaning of which would be any butler’s nightmare prevented me from examining, again and again and of course fruitlessly, my situation with Sherlock.  
  
*  
  
I made quick work with my sponge—and every stroke of it drew from him a whispered sigh of satisfaction; of contentedness; of desire. He was, without a doubt, in desperate need of a bath, and I was vigorous in my ablutions. And then I was done and he was fresh and clean and both of us were so very rigid and without preamble I engulfed him with my eager mouth and at the same time stirred his balls until he became quite speechless and rather unsure of his legs and it was a simple thing to tip him onto the bed and to rip off my own trousers and as I rather violently attacked his lips with my own my prick encountered his and I moaned and I thrust and I grasped at him and he at me and I knew that all my hard work with the sponge was going to waste as we both grew hot and soon soaked with perspiration as I continued to almost angrily thrust against his lovely cock and then I wanted to take it in my mouth again but—  
  
Too close. He was too close and I was too close and I had been so close to release all day and I thrust and lubricated both of us with my perspiration and my hand continued to tease his bollocks and then I felt them tighten beneath my fingers and then we simultaneously assured the laundress of a very good week indeed—she would be dining on a joint herself the next Sunday, with all the extra she would be earning.  
  
*  
  
I nearly wept when I awoke, alone, in the bed of my hotel room.  
  
*  
  
I did not enjoy my solitary breakfast one bit. As I had done the previous morning, I held a book in front of my eyes, but I did not absorb a single word. I had no appetite. I finally gave up and returned to my room, where I rather viciously threw my things in my bag and checked out. I was going home.  
  
*  
  
Mrs. Watson greeted me at the door when I arrived.  
  
“How has he been?” I inquired with trepidation.  
  
“He’s criticised the curtains, the wallpaper, my eel pie, and the new style of hat. Every time I go up there, he’s just lying on those cushions in front of the fire, smoking his pipe and complaining.” Her tone was a bit sharp.  
  
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I remarked, heading up the steps.  
  
*  
  
I do love him dearly—more than anyone or anything else in this world—and I do understand that at times he cannot control his feelings or behaviours in any useful way or he simply would not be Sherlock Holmes—but sometimes I do wish that I could come home to a quiet evening by the fire discussing the price of beef or the proposed expansion of the railway rather than what was in store for me. But we needed to discuss what had occurred between us—and it was to be one of those discussions that entailed me doing a great deal of explaining things to my love that any other grown man would already know.  
  
I would not have been so cynical if he had been exhibiting signs of melancholia, but smoking his pipe and complaining was Sherlock in a sulk, and I had no sympathy for that.  
  
“Get up,” I ordered as soon as I entered our sitting room. It was stuffy and the pipe smoke was creating a haze that obscured the corners. He sat up, a look of astonishment on his face.  
  
I tossed my bag to the floor and threw myself into my chair. “Come sit up here with me,” I instructed.  
  
Without a word, he scrambled off his raft of cushions and into my lap. His pipe had clattered to the hearth, forgotten.  
  
“You reek of smoke,” I commented sternly. “We are going to have a talk, and then you are going to change your clothing.”  
  
“Yes, John,” he replied meekly.  
  
I settled him against my shoulder and began.  
  
*  
  
“Now, first of all, I take it from your attitude that you are no longer angry with me.”  
  
“No, John.”  
  
“And you have no objection to being with me?”  
  
“None.”  
  
“Then we will get to the heart of things. Shall I summarise?” I continued without waiting for a response. “I admitted to becoming stimulated at an investigation. It was inappropriate of me, but sometimes one cannot control these matters. I excused myself and our client and his maid were none the wiser.  
  
“Then, when I explained this to you, you became quite angry with me.”  
  
“Yes, I did.”  
  
“And that is when I left our rooms.” He remained silent. “Did you receive my letters?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Did you read them?”  
  
“No.”  
  
I was not the least bit surprised, but I did sigh in some exasperation. He can be so very stubborn sometimes. “Very well. Then I will tell you what they said.”  
  
Now he sighed and I stifled a laugh—he sounded so very put out.  
  
“They did not actually say much more than what I have already expressed. I simply described—again—how I had been feeling that morning and how your actions were—are—very stimulating.”  
  
“And that is precisely what I do not understand!” he protested quite vehemently. I felt his back stiffen.  
  
“What do you not understand?” I asked gently. His entire demeanour alarmed me. Why was he so perturbed?  
  
“I do not understand what one thing has to do with the other. What does my investigation of a crime scene have to do with our… being together?”  
  
“I honestly cannot fully explain it,” I admitted. “I have never felt that way at any of the more gruesome scenes. But sometimes, like that morning, you are undeniably _distracting_.”  
  
“But…” His voice was tight and I detected the slightest tremble in his thin frame. “I cannot fathom why my activities during an investigation would lead you to… it just makes no sense.”  
  
“It is because—we are intimate, my love, and your activities sometimes bring to mind our private times together.”  
  
He shook his head in incomprehension.  
  
“Sherlock,” I continued, “what are you usually doing when you kneel before me?”  
  
“I… oh.”  
  
“Yes. Oh. And there you were, knelt down and your mouth inches from my… from me.”  
  
“But I was not making any motions the least bit evocative of that activity. In fact, I should think it was rather the opposite—pulling a sharp fork from a chair’s seat seems a rather off-putting action.”  
  
“You would think that,” I agreed. “Nonetheless, I found my mind running on a quite different track.”  
  
Sherlock huffed in frustration. “Fine. If I accept—which I am not certain I do—that certain of my actions evoked memories of our intimate times together, even whilst investigating a crime, I still do not understand why you could not… erm… _diminish_ your reaction.”  
  
“It’s not always that easy, Sherlock,” I growled, growing impatient with him. “You evoke quite strong sensations in me—you know that you do.”  
  
“My body does,” he said sullenly.  
  
“Yes, your body does,” I agreed. “Why are you having such a difficult time understanding this?”  
  
“Because that is what I do not understand! it is just my body—it is a tool; nothing more. It allows me to move about—to gather information. It is not… when I am working, it is not… it is not the same as when we are together in that other way. It is not the same thing _at all_!” He ended his statement vehemently, and I pressed down on his thin back to prevent him from leaping up from my lap. I was shaken.  
  
“Why does this upset you so?” I demanded. I was truly confounded. “Do you believe that I think less of your abilities because I become distracted? My darling!” I cried. “I could not possibly lose my fascination with and admiration for you and your amazing abilities. You truly astound me—no matter how many times you explain what you have observed, and your deductions, and make it seem so apparent, it is anything but. Every single time, you amaze and astound me. I will never, ever grow weary of it.”  
  
“But my activities—my movements—somehow awake other feelings.” He was becoming even more distressed.   
  
“Sometimes, yes.”  
  
He remained silent for a moment, contemplating this. “In what circumstances?” he finally demanded.  
  
I considered this. “Well, in this particular case, to be perfectly honest, I was—well—I had had a very pleasant—very stimulating—dream, and when I awoke I was quite excited, but as you recall we had but a few minutes to dress ourselves and attend to our client.”  
  
“Mmm.”  
  
“I did, of course, manage to get myself decently attired and come to the crime scene with you.”  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
“And once there, I was attending to your investigations—I assure you I was, but… my love—you are just so very beautiful. When we are intimate together, I cannot think of a single other thing. And sometimes—yes—it does spill into other times of our lives.” I took a deep breath.  
  
“But why can you not—or why do you choose to not—control yourself?”  
  
“I am a weak man,” I offered.  
  
“You are not!” he protested. “You are one of the strongest and most brave and stalwart men I have ever known.”  
  
“But I still succumb to hunger and fatigue, do I not?”  
  
“Yes.” He sounded distinctly sulky. “But only when I have pushed you far more than any more ordinary man.”  
  
“But I still eventually give in.” Silence. I continued. “It is the same with my desire for you, my sweet. Sometimes I am able to push those feelings aside, and sometimes they subside of their own volition, and sometimes they will not be refused.”  
  
He considered this.   
  
“And I must tell you, my love, that it is not at all unusual.”  
  
“No?” He raised his head and looked me in the eye, clearly astounded by this revelation.  
  
“Sherlock! _You_ have impulses. Urges. You know you do.”  
  
“I… did not… I did not understand what they meant until you taught me.”  
  
“But you _had_ them—whether or not you understood them. That is what I have been trying to explain. Sherlock, I have said this before. We are healthy men. I have urges. You have urges. It is completely normal.”  
  
“Our urges for one another are not normal,” he stated flatly.  
  
“No, perhaps _they_ are not, but urges in general are. They are as natural as feeling hungry or sleepy. All right, perhaps that was not a good example for you… or perhaps it was. It is not that you do not feel hungry or tired. Your body does feel those things. Your body requires nourishment and rest. You just choose to ignore those feelings—or more precisely to suppress them for a time. It is the same for your more… base needs. You have just admitted that you felt those things, before we ever even knew each other—but you seemed to have ignored them or pushed them away somehow exactly as you do with feelings of hunger or exhaustion.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“So, that is a _rare_ ability, my love. You know that I, and nearly everyone else, succumbs regularly to the need for food, and sleep, and… release.”  
  
“I suppose,” he murmured sulkily.  
  
“So, is it any wonder that, having already been rather more than a bit keen that morning, observing you as you threw that lovely body of yours into those most fantastic positions, I felt my desire rising again?”  
  
“When you rose, were you truly stiff in that way—not just because it was morning? Because I have observed—”  
  
“Sherlock, I was so rigid I found it nearly impossible to dress until I recalled the maggots that you assured me would remain on your table (and they did not),” I reported grimly.  
  
“So, you were stimulated before we even rose, but you managed to kerb your desires by considering my extremely enlightening and purposeful experiment (and they did not get very far away from the table after they fell off).”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“But then as I examined the crime scene, those feelings resurfaced?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Because your observations of my actions reminded you of our intimate acts?”  
  
“Precisely.”  
  
“And you were unable to quell those feelings simply because sometimes… biological needs overcome intellectual pursuits?”  
  
I kissed the delicate shell of his ear. “Highest marks, my love,” I whispered into it. I thought I was finally in the clear, and that our horrid conversation was over.  
  
And then he said something that astonished me.  
  
“So, it was not that I was boring you.”  
  
I was confounded. I admit it. I had no idea that it was this thought that had him so distressed. My mouth fell open in shock, and then snapped shut. My poor, confused sweetheart. How could he possibly think that he could ever— _ever_ —bore me? “What?! No, no! Not at _all_ , my darling. You could _never_ bore me,” I exclaimed.  
  
“Are you certain?”  
  
I held him more closely. He was trembling. “Yes, of course I am certain. How could you possibly think that?”  
  
“I just could not think of another reason for you to become so distracted.”  
  
“My darling,” I told him firmly, “no, you do not and never will bore me. You do sometimes overwhelm and confound me, but you have never once been anything but positively fascinating to me.”  
  
“Even when you are counting forks?”  
  
“Simply because I sometimes must perform rather tedious tasks, it does not mean that I think that _you_ are tedious,” I reassured him, tipping my head a bit so I could kiss his ear. “That I sometimes become distracted from those tasks _by_ you just means that I am a healthy man with healthy desires and you, my love, are sometimes quite irresistible.” I kissed his ear again, this time lingering so he could feel my breath on his neck. “And now that I have awoken those desires in you through those most delicious activities in which we indulge,” I murmured, “can you honestly tell me that you do not sometimes find those urges undeniable?” I gave his neck a soft, warm kiss.  
  
He hummed and nuzzled into my cheek. Excellent. Just the direction I was hoping this conversation would go. “John?” he murmured.  
  
“Mmm?” I replied, nibbling a bit.  
  
“Uh… mmm. You are… oh… correct.”  
  
His hesitant murmurings were heavenly to my ears. “Am I? How nice. What am I correct about?” I sucked lightly at his neck.  
  
“That I… that feels so lovely… that sometimes it is not a simple thing to—ah!—to deny my feelings.”  
  
“So, you admit that sometimes you cannot push away those feelings of desire?”  
  
“It is as you say, John,” he admitted as a shudder of delight ran all the way down his slender body.  
  
“And do you understand that it is perfectly natural, and that I did not intend to slight you and your investigation in any way?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“And now, my love,” I whispered with the lightest application of my teeth to his white skin, “I have thought of a rather novel way of driving my point home.”  
  
“What is that?”  
  
“Come with me.”  
  
He slid off my lap and followed me obediently into my bedroom. I turned and stood by the foot of my bed. “Now, here I am at the dining room table of Mr. Harper, counting the rather overly fussy plates. Where were you?”  
  
He looked at me with the briefest of moments of puzzlement before discerning my intent. “Oh! I was… examining the window, was I not?” He strode over to my window, and with a rather teasing smile, first allowed his dressing gown to slip off his shoulders to the floor and then began to “examine” the frame. “Did I crouch down to look at the floor?” he wondered, doing just that. I could see his lean body as it moved beneath the light fabric of his trousers.  
  
“Precisely,” I managed. My face was growing hot.  
  
“And I believe that I then reached up to observe the latch,” and as he stretched, I could see his taut buttocks and sinewy arms and that most delicious place on the back of his neck, just where the dark hair and white skin met. I found myself growing hot all over.  
  
“And I sat on the sill and leaned nearly backwards with my glass,” he recalled, mimicking the position by turning and leaning with his back against the window. His head was tipped back and I found myself wishing to place my lips on his white throat.  
  
“I had to rather overextend myself,” he added, stretching his arm out. I ran my eyes down his lithe body. I took a deep breath in as I observed how very much tighter the front of his trousers was now; and he grinned wickedly as he observed that my own body was in a similar condition.  
  
“What did I do next, John?” he nearly purred.  
  
“Why… you came to the table,” I managed to splutter.  
  
He took the few steps necessary to bring him in front of me. “Why, yes, I did,” he agreed, licking his lips. “And then what?”  
  
“Uh… that was when you began to examine the table.”  
  
Not taking his eyes off me now, he ran his hand along the brass rail at the foot of my bed, his hand flat as if it rested on a fine, smooth table top. “And then what did I do?”  
  
“You…” and my breath shuddered. “You knelt to examine the seat of the chair next to me.”  
  
“That I did,” he murmured, and with one graceful motion he sank down in front of me and I looked down to observe his nimble, white fingers as they unfastened my trousers and skilfully freed my rigid prick from them and with one final glance up at me, his eyes glistening with mirth, his beautiful mouth engulfed me, his strong, thin fingers gripped my hips, and he drew from me _la petite mort_ as I had so long desired.  
  
*  
  
I must add my own codicil here. After a positively marvellous time with my love—and of course I returned the favour and a great deal more besides—we were lying side by side on my narrow bed, and I was running my fingers lightly down his bare chest, making him shiver.  
  
“That tickles!” he protested.  
  
“That is my intention,” I retorted, kissing his cheek in amusement. We lay quietly for a moment, and then something struck me. “Sherlock, at some point I would like to hear about your resolution of the case,” I remarked.  
  
“Oh,” he sighed. “It was rather dull. After I realised that the intruder could not have lifted both herself and all those dishes through the window, I went around and examined the door that led directly into the kitchen. It was clear from the impression in the soft dirt around it that someone had recently rested a wicker basket beside it. From that I deduced that the intruder had transported those objects in a picnic hamper, placed them outside the door at the rear of the house, lifted herself into the dining room through the window, then unlocked the door from the inside and brought her burden inside to set up her macabre scene.”  
  
“I had surmised it was a woman,” I nodded. “But who? And how did you identify her?”  
  
“That was simple enough. I merely asked Mr Harper who he had entertained—or at least had in the house—recently. He had, as I suspected, had some neighbours in a week prior for some supper and cards. This party included a young, unmarried woman accompanying her parents—a young woman whom he had been introduced to when he took the house a year prior, and whom he had encountered several times since.”  
  
“She had grown enamoured of him?”  
  
“Apparently, although he claims to have had no idea nor interest in her—she is quite young and rather a silly thing, according to him.”  
  
“So…” I considered, “having been present in his dining room a week prior, she saw her opportunity by either observing the broken window latch or breaking it herself, and made her rather bizarre offering in the hopes of winning his heart?”  
  
“I am afraid so. Mr. Harper and I went ‘round to his neighbours’ house. Unfortunately, the family was away from home at that time, but I did observe that their garden boasted several rose bushes.”  
  
“Red roses?”  
  
“Obviously, John. Mr. Harper planned to re-visit them when they returned in the evening. I have no idea what he planned to say or do—that is beyond my responsibilities.”  
  
“I am curious about that,” I admitted. “Perhaps I will call on Mr. Harper myself and inquire.”  
  
“If you wish—I suppose you will write this up.”  
  
“Possibly. It certainly was peculiar. I could entitle it ‘The Riddle of the Red Rose.’”  
  
Sherlock threw back his head and laughed heartily. “How perfectly appropriate, John!” he gasped.  
  
I smiled at his merriment, then shook my head. “What amuses you so, my love?” I wondered.  
  
“The Christian name of the rather over-enthusiastic young woman—”  
  
“Don’t tell me…”  
  
“Yes, John. Her given name is ‘Rose’.”  
  
[Sherlock has added a note.]  
  
This really was a dull case—at least the solution was. The execution was, I admit, intriguing. But did that young woman truly believe that committing a burglary—of sorts—and trespassing would make her more attractive as a wife?  
  
I am glad we have no need of such trappings of domestic life—china and forks and the like. We do not need those things for you to know that I do love you.  
  



End file.
